Where the honey in our Hot Honey actually comes from

Why local honey changes the sauce

Supermarket honey is blended from multiple countries, filtered hot, and pasteurised. It tastes sweet, but flat. Local raw honey carries floral notes from whatever's in flower within 3 miles of the hive — that's the bee's foraging range. Cardiff's mid-summer flow is bramble and clover, which gives a darker, almost caramel undertone. Drizzled over fried chicken, that depth matters.

The chilli side

Pembrokeshire Chilli Farm grows scotch bonnets and aji limos in polytunnels just up the coast. We get them at peak ripeness, smoke them lightly, blend them into a paste, and stir into the warm honey at 60°C — hot enough to thin, cool enough to keep the volatile aromas.

What it costs us

Local honey at £14/kg is roughly four times what mass-market honey costs at wholesale. We use about 30 kilos a month between Roath and Cathays. We don't pass that cost on at the level the maths would suggest — the sauce is 50p extra. It is, frankly, the single best line on the menu by margin sacrificed per pound of flavour.